Hermès heir handcuffed to seat after row on NY flight

AN heir to the Hermès fashion house was facing 20 years in prison today after grabbing a pilot's crotch and trying to punch him on route from Paris to New York.

Mathias Guerrand-Hermès, 36, became so unruly on the transatlantic flight that he had to be handcuffed to a seat in first class.

It took the captain and three other crew members to finally restrain Guerrand-Hermès, whose greatest passion in life is polo.

"He was like a man possessed," said a passenger on Tuesday's Air France Flight 008.

Guerrand-Hermès began acting strangely around three hours into the flight. According to papers filed in the US, he had drunk "quite a bit of alcohol" and taken the prescription drug Propofan.

After disturbing a fellow passenger and refusing to return to his seat, flight attendants called the captain, who asked him to calm down. Instead he allegedly grabbed the pilot's crotch, shouting: "I am not going to behave myself", and threw a punch.

He was arrested by FBI agents at John F. Kennedy airport and charged with interfering with flight crew members.